On The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, President Obama talked with host Jay Leno about everything from the Affordable Care Act and NSA leaker Edward Snowden to the economy, his relationship with Hillary Clinton, and the death of Trayvon Martin. Leno asked the president about the ongoing skepticism for the NSA surveillance program that collects phone record metadata in order to prevent terrorist attacks. Obama firmly stated that the government has not encroached on the privacy of citizens, and that they have not “abused these powers” in any way. He added that America does not “have a domestic spying program,” but intelligence gathering is “a critical component” for a counter-terrorism program.

‘What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat, and, you know, that information is useful,” Obama said. “But, you know, what I’ve said before, you know, and I want to make sure I repeat and that is we should be skeptical about the potential encroachments on privacy. None of the revelations show that the government has actually abused these powers, but they are pretty significant powers.” Jay Leno also brought up the recent crackdown on gays in Russia, comparing the country’s treatment of homosexuality to the way Nazi Germany persecuted Jews. President Obama said he has “no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them.”

Leno told the president he’d spoken eloquently about the death of Trayvon Martin. “I could tell you were speaking from the heart,” he said. “Tell me about that.” He told Leno that he spoke about the case because he “wanted to try to explain why this was a particularly sensitive topic for African-American families because a lot of people who have sons know the experience they had of being followed and being viewed suspiciously…what we also believe in is people, everybody, should be treated fairly and the system should work for everyone. And so what I’m trying to do is just make sure that we have a conversation and that were all asking ourselves ‘are there some things we can do to foster better understanding’ and to make sure we don’t have laws in place that encourage the kind of violent encounter that we saw there that resulted in tragedy.”

In a rare diplomatic rebuke, President Barack Obama on Wednesday canceled his Moscow summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The decision reflected both U.S. anger over Russia’s harboring of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and growing frustration within the Obama administration over what it sees as Moscow’s stubbornness on other key issues, including missile defense and human rights.

Obama will still attend the Group of 20 economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, but a top White House official said the president had no plans to hold one-on-one talks with Putin while there. Instead of visiting Putin in Moscow, the president will add a stop in Sweden to his early September travel itinerary. “We’ll still work with Russia on issues where we can find common ground, but it was the unanimous view of the president and his national security team that a summit did not make sense in the current environment,” Rhodes said.

What Cantor said was the opposite of the truth — he said the nation has a “growing deficit,” when in reality, we have a shrinking deficit. We can have a discussion about whether the House Majority Leader was deliberately trying to deceive the public — Republicans have an incentive to convince the public that U.S. finances are in worse shape than they really are — or whether Cantor simply doesn’t know the basics of current events. But I’m afraid it’s either one or the other. Unless, that is, you’re PolitiFact.

I would have hoped for a “Pants on Fire” rating, but would have settled for at least a “False” conclusion. But the House Majority Leader can make a claim that’s the polar opposite of reality and it’s “half true”? Seriously? In theory, I’m not reflexively opposed to the idea of websites fact-checking important claims made by political figures, but if you’re going to have the word “fact” in your name, you have a responsibility to get the details right. And too often, PolitiFact just isn’t good at its job.

What if Republicans — in their drive to repeal and even defund Obamacare — are making the same mistake they made in 2012 about the economy? Last year, Republicans gambled that high public dissatisfaction with Obama’s economic performance meant majorities had concluded that the President had been an abject failure, meaning there was simply no chance he’d be reelected. Instead, exit polls suggested voters didn’t hold Obama to blame for the economy in high enough numbers to ensure his defeat. One possible explanation — advanced by Ron Brownstein, yours truly and others — is that despite their disappointment, they found the sluggishness of the recovery understandable, given the circumstances, and saw the election as a nuanced choice between sticking with a disappointing status quo and a worse alternative. Republicans appeared caught off guard by this.

A similar miscalculation may be guiding the current GOP drive to repeal Obamacare — and the conservative drive to shut down the government to force its defunding. polls that offer a more nuanced range of options — such as changing the law or repealing parts of it — find only minority support for the GOP position of full repeal. This pattern has been clear for years now. Meanwhile, polls that ask directly whether Republicans should keep blocking the law find majority opposition to that. It seems reasonable to surmise that dissatisfaction with the law may not necessarily translate into broad support for getting rid of it entirely (let alone replacing it with nothing). As in 2012, voters may be taking a longer, more nuanced view than Republicans think.

There was a line in Dan Balz’s terrific analysis of the Republican Party’s political dilemma that kind of bugged me. Not because he was wrong, but because he could be easily disproven. All that’s needed is for black folks to vote. During the 2012 presidential election, Republicans certainly thought past patterns would prevail. Specifically, they thought the coalition of minorities and women, many of whom were first-time voters, wouldn’t return to the polls for two reasons. First, there was a strong belief that because those first-time voters didn’t have a tradition of voting, many of them would stay home on Election Day. Second, there was an even stronger belief that President Obama’s coalition was so disillusioned by what their guy was unable to achieve that they would be too demoralized to vote. Wrong and wrong, again.

Blacks were the only race or ethnic group to show a significant increase between the 2008 and 2012 elections in the likelihood of voting (from 64.7 percent to 66.2 percent). The 2012 increase in voting among blacks continues what has been a long-term trend: since 1996, turnout rates have risen 13 percentage points to the highest levels of any recent presidential election. A House of Representatives returned to Democratic control and the Democratic majority hanging on in the Senate would allow Obama to get his agenda through and get something done for the American people. All that’s required is for the 2014 electorate to be less white than it has ever been.

I guess he thought PBO would come with hat in hand begging to meet with Putin. Not!! Sounds to me like he’s telling Putin that Snowden is now his problem and your days of trying to poke me in the eye are over.

President Obama is always a gazillion steps ahead of all of the other politicians, no matter where they come from … he just is. Face it, Putin! We hope you and Snowden will make a lotta good memories together (NOT). Actually, we’d rather have both of ya off the world stage, as fast as possible.

UT – thank you so much for the news and the videos – way past my bedtime – I shall watch them all tomorrow.

I am pleased the President has cancelled his meeting with Putin. There will be another 18 leaders at the G20 who will be happy to meet with PBO. I must see if anyone is going from my world – We will be in the midst of election day – I think??

One night a police officer was staking out a particularly rowdy bar for possible DUI violations. At closing time, he saw a fellow tumble out of the bar, trip on the curb, and try his keys in five different cars before he found his. Then he sat in the front seat fumbling around with his keys for several minutes. Everyone else left the bar and drove off. Finally he started his engine and began to pull away. The police officer was waiting for him. He stopped the driver, read him his rights and administered the Breathalyzer test. The results showed a reading of 0.0. The puzzled officer demanded to know how that could be. The driver replied, “Tonight I’m the designated decoy.

So much good stuff here!!! I was just making a comment at BooMan and ran across an article about the President from January I wanted to share. Actually I will pass on a couple of articles. I am getting more and more impressed with the power of Twitter. That really came home to me when Wendy Davis was filibustering in TX and the MSM didn’t cover it at all. We were watching it live on Twitter, but getting photos and messages making it a real time experience. People connected through that experience and the connection is growing stronger all the time. When the MSM is stumbling for so many reasons, we now have social networking tools that are even better.

Here’s an article about Ashton Kutcher using Twitter to raise money for malaria relief like the Jerry Lewis telethons. The article points out that people can correct misinformation directly with Twitter. (as it is with ObamaCare now)

I think there is an evolution in communicating going on and we are right in the midst of it. Twitter, the Internet and social media are going great guns about ObamaCare, correcting all the nonsense being put around. I absolutely love being able to hear about PBO, his speeches and his work in real time. I really enjoy visiting here and reading your tweets. I have a feeling there are more good things coming, but in the meantime it’s pretty exciting!

Right on point!, Toon I hadn’t thought of it that way. I have been so interested in the power of Twitter especially. It’s being very powerful in the #ObamaCare roll out and OFA has created a Twitter Brigade headed by @BradASchenck for the President’s legislation. I hope it can be a tool useful for voter registration and GOTV in 2014. It will certainly be an immediate way for us to connect then.

I saw the first of what may be many RWNJ town hall meetings. Well, just as I figured, the tinfoil folks are out to primary anyone who won’t sign Michael Lee’s pledge to defund ObamaCares or shut down the government. The Represetative was trying to stay on the RNC/Boehner message of being anti-Washington (go figure), but the crowd wasn’t having it. The teabags are steeped (get it?) in their determination to bring the party down. They are threatening to primary the folks they put in place in 2010. smh.

Against my better judgement I came across Alex Wagner show and I decided to listen to afew minutes of it, I had to STOP! According to Alex and her guess President Obama was so wrong to conceal the summit he had with Russia leader Putin. I could not take her anymore, plus she had that Katrina von bitch her name, whom I can’t stand up there running her mouth.

I watched the entire interview last night. I’m not always impressed with Leno, but I was last night. I liked what he said about immigrants: that their children are always Americans…..that no matter where they start, after being here at least two generations, they are as American as anyone else. He cited his own family: His grandparents spoke Italian, his father spoke Italian and English, and he speaks English. He told the story of a family from Mexico, and showed the same progression with them. It was very clear what his feelings are about those who would defame immigrants, and stop the immigration reform.
He does a good job interviewing, because he is polite. He lets the interviewee talk, and doesn’t interrupt. Also, he asks substantive questions. I saw a bit of him on LOD last night, and he said he always starts with the belief that whoever he is interviewing is a good person, and goes from there. I liked what he told LOD that he believes the president is working for the good of the country, and really genuinely is not in it for anything for himself.